Word: socialists
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...resurgence of capitalism is rewriting the world's political lexicons. Social Democratic leaders across Western Europe are increasingly pro-business. Says Herbert Giersch, director of the Institute of World Economics at the University of Kiel, West Germany: "The European Commission, even under a socialist president, is pushing toward a decontrol of the capital market, a breakdown of the airline cartel and reform of agriculture policy...
...reason that private enterprise is on the rise is clear. While capitalist nations, including the U.S. and the emerging countries of Asia, have been highly successful at creating wealth, socialism has largely proved an economic drag. Says Peter Berger, a sociologist at Boston University: "Socialist societies have been dramatically outperformed by any number of successful capitalist countries, especially in Asia...
...addition, many founding fathers from newly independent countries had been educated in the West, absorbing then trendy socialist ideas at influential institutions like the London School of Economics. Wrote Edward Shils, a University of Chicago sociologist: "The spread of socialistic ideas was aided by the large-scale migration of Asian and African intellectuals to Europe for further study and professional training." Once in power, they applied what they had learned...
France is loosening its system of dirigisme, or state direction of business, which goes back to the 17th century and Jean Baptiste Colbert, the minister to Louis XIV. Socialist President Francois Mitterrand nationalized 39 banks and five major industries soon after taking office in 1981. He changed course later, but not before the political damage had been done. Last March a right-wing coalition that promised to denationalize companies and promote business won control of the National Assembly. Now Mitterrand and Prime Minister Jacques Chirac are locked in a struggle over terms for selling off state-owned corporations. A particularly...
...Italy, former Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, a Socialist, created a capitalist renaissance that appears likely to last. During the three-year rule of Craxi, whose government fell last month, the country's mood had changed. Says Arrigo Levi, one of the country's best-known journalists: "There is a new belief in market forces, in private enterprise, in the value of work itself, and that has been accompanied by a crumbling away of the idea that the state owes you a living...